Fall Semester Classes, 2007

LI 835 Information Transfer in the Disciplines (2 credits)
LI 837 Teaching in the Information Profession (2 credits)
LI 873 Archives Practicum (3 credits) Oregon State University Library A

Digital Scrapbooking

Next month I'm taking a distance learning class from SOLINET on Caring for Scrapbooks . I've been reading about digital scrapbooking, which are scrapbooks which exist only in digital form. There are web sites, software, and even a magazine . Photos can be altered, elements can be added, altered, or highlighted, and memories can be enhanced. What will happen when someone tries to donate a digital scrapbook to an institution? Will it be considered history? Or is it art?

In the introduction to their book, The Scrapbook in American Life (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006),Susan Tucker, Katherine Ott, and Patricia P. Buckler, write:

“Most scrapbooks and their ephemeral content do not last and provide only a fleeting usefulness. They disintegrate and crumble. The leaves fall out. The enclosures drop off the page. Archivists, the most conscientious embalmers of primary materials, tend to neglect them because they are conservation nightmares. None of the solutions available will correct all the problems. Sometimes an archivist must destroy a scrapbook – take it apart – to save it” (p. 18)

And there's another difference between paper scrapbooks and their digital counterparts.

The Four Habits of Highly Effective Librarians

This Chronicle of Higher Education article, written by Todd Gilman and published a few months ago (but which I've just found), The Four Habits of Highly Effective Librarians , lists them as

* Openness
* Responsiveness
* Collaboration
* Communication

I think they apply just as well to archivists as they do to librarians.

Reading Archives

Reading Archives is on my list of blogs I read regularly. Hmmmm... and that reminds me that I really should add a blog roll list. The blogger is Richard J. Cox. a Professor in Library and Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh, School of Information Sciences and I read his book reviews avidly. I've just added Ken Dornstein’s The Boy Who Fell Out of the Sky: A True Story, John Ray’s The Rosetta Stone and the Rebirth of Ancient Egypt,Sara Paretsky’s Writing in an Age of Silence, and Anne Fadiman’s At Large and at Small: Familiar Essays to my must-read list based on his reviews.

I'm also dipping into his blog archives to find other great reads I've missed. The books on my nightstand are piled so high now, they're in danger of falling over but never mind. I'm having more trouble finding the time to read than finding space to put the books.

Learning with MIT OpenCourseWare

MIT OpenCourseWare is a wonderful resource for people who like to explore and learn new things. These courses, everything from mathematics to linguistics and philosophy, makes the course materials that are used in the teaching of almost all MIT’s undergraduate and graduate subjects available on the Web, free of charge, to any user anywhere in the world. It is not a degree-granting or credit-bearing initiative, but offers learning opportunities for anyone who wants to take advantage of it.

The UnOfficial Wiki of the 2007 Society of American Archivists (SAA) Annual Meeting

Take a peek at the SAA 2007 Unofficial Conference Wiki . I very much appreciate the efforts of those who have set this up.

As I'm not going to the conference, one of the pages I'll be most interested in is the Session Coverage page.

Journal of Archival Organization

I'd heard of this journal but neither the Oregon State University Library nor the Emporia State University Library subscribe. I found the publisher's website and discovered that I could request
a free print sample . I received my copy several weeks ago, but haven't had time to read it. The topic of the issue is "Archives and the Digital Library".

Today, however, I'm going to be spending most of the day in medical offices waiting and so I'm bringing the journal with me to read. I'm especially interested in the article about user studies and one about streamlined archival processing.

Oregon Library Association Scholarship

I'm in Portland, attending class, but I talked to John on the phone this afternoon and he said I'd received a letter informing me I'd won a scholarship from the Oregon Library Association .

Catalog Card Maker

Portland This Weekend

I have a class in Portland this week. I'm looking forward to seeing my classmates and going to the Farmer's Market on Saturday.

The Last Couple of Weeks

In the past few weeks, I've been working to catch up with my assignments. The conference in Idaho in May and then the one in Baltimore in June , interrupted my study schedule quite badly. I'm now caught up and I'm working on research for the few projects I have left this semester, as well getting ready for the presentation I'm doing in Wilsonville on July 20th.

I've volunteered to be on the Programming Committee for the American Indian Library Association which will tie in very well with being on the Program Committee for the National Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museum Conference , which will be held in Portland in 2009.

I've registered for several SOLINET distance classes including Introduction to Preservation (which will give me a nice jump start on my Emporia Preservation class which begins next month) and Preserving Oral Histories, both this month. SOLINET gives a very generous discount to students, so in August I'll be taking classes in Caring for Scrapbooks, Preservation of Photographic Materials, and Grants for Preservation. Then, in September, I start a distance learning eight-week class on Managing Copyright issues. The money for this comes from my Northwest Archivists scholarship.

I've begun working on an article I'm writing for their newsletter Easy Access about the Rare Books and Manuscripts Conference,From Here to Ephemerality: Fugitive Sources in Libraries, Archives, and Museums . This will be published in their September issue. I've also discussed writing an article with the editor of Archival Issues .

I've registered for a total of ten (!) credit hours for Fall Semester. My academic advisor is probably tearing her hair out at what I'm doing, but maybe she's figured out what John realized years ago: when I am determined to do something, it's best just to smile and get out of my way and let me do it. I am having so much fun!

And it's not "all work, no play". Check out my new blog, Small Comforts , and see what I do on the vacation days I give myself! I do take time to smell the flowers!